Monday, August 2, 2010

Found this on the Gods Playing Poker website. Normally I don't repost their comics, but this one struck a chord with me. One of the first messages I came across that attracted me to Buddhism was a quote attributed to Siddharta himself. I liked it so much that I printed it out and framed it in my church office, where it caused quite a few double takes. It reads:

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Seems to me that many of the problems we are having today, in religion, politics and cultural clashes, are due to the fact that we take others' words as absolute truth. We accept them without thinking. If someone on FOX or MSNBC or CNN says it, it must be true and I need to act accordingly. Check your brain at the door and fall in lockstep with your fellow sheep.

Doing that is easy enough, but it allows everyone else in the world to take advantage of you - heart, mind, and soul. And in taking advantage of you, they put you and your loved ones in harm's way. Even if their motives are pure, blind faith, as the Boss said in his remake of the great song War, "will only get you killed." So in that spirit, here's today's post from God's Playing Poker: